SEX IN DEPTH The land of the Karma Sutra flunks sex ed
By William Sparrow
BANGKOK - Home of the Karma Sutra, a press that screams about sex at every
chance and a population well over 1 billion, sex pervades many aspects of daily
life in India. Yet as recent reports show, the country struggles to come to
terms with sexuality as educators, parents and politicians squabble over sex
education.
This week, the Ministry of Education in Maharashtra State in Central India
announced that it was planning to reintroduce sex education to the schools. The
move comes a year after protests by parents and politicians prompted the
Ministry of Education to pull its existing curriculum because it was deemed
"too graphic".
Apparently, black and white cartoon-style cross sections of a penis or a vagina
are too graphic. In a country that struggles with
sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, unplanned parenthood, an exploding
population and gender selective abortion - one might think sex education would
be something of a priority.
Unfortunately, it isn't. In fact, sex education is banned in many Indian
states, a fact that's increasingly frustrating to educators. "If somebody's
life [could be] ruined by lack of scientific knowledge it's the state's
responsibility to provide it," Vasant Purke, education minister of Maharashtra,
told media this week.
Throughout India young people are presented with sexual content in magazines,
newspapers, movies and on television and the Internet. As someone who monitors
sex news, I'm amazed how often I receive news alerts from major Indian daily
news sources. But as for stories about sex in India - there's nothing at all.
It is almost categorically a sex story from the West that the Indian media have
picked up and run with sensational headlines like "Paris Hilton sex tape
released!" or "American Idol contestant Antonella Barba nude pictures surface!"
Not to mention - for the tenth time - "Paparazzi photograph catches Britney
Spears without panties!" The screaming headlines inevitably conclude with the
old "dog's dick", as exclamation points are sometimes called by print media
types.
It's tiresome stuff. Even Americans have grown bored of such celebrity antics,
so one has to wonder why the average Indian would be interested in this
soft-core smut.
The truth is they're not. Although Indians might look up the pictures on the
Internet - many could care less about Britney, Paris and so on, if they even
know who they are. The fact is Indians are interested in the sex angle of the
so-called stories. The sex angle, at least in its salacious and entertaining
aspect, is never mentioned in local Indian news reports. In fact, other than
"bad news" - in the form of scandals, sex education woes, sex crimes or
prostitution busts - the local and Indian media almost entirely shies away from
reporting on sex.
Considering that India gave the world the Karma Sutra - possibly the first
illustrated how-to manual for intercourse ever written - in the 2nd century,
India may have been one of the earliest countries in Asia to have had a sexual
revolution. In international terms the Greeks were first in the field, of
course, but other than its open society towards sex, the Greeks have
accomplished little since.
Getting back to sex ed: it's clear the Karma Sutra shouldn't be used as
educational tool for young students. After all, it's an erotic guide meant to
heighten the pleasure of the sexual act. However, in the country that produced
it one might expect a little more tolerance in terms of talking openly about
sex. It wasn't until 1972 that the Joy of Sex came out in America - a
time when the US was gripped by its own sexual revolution. The US, which is
considered downright prudish by European standards, has mandatory sex ed in
public schools and doesn't seem to have a huge problem with those cartoon
penises and vagina drawings found in sexual education schoolbooks.
Seriously, consider the following scenario: A teacher steps before a classroom
of teenagers and says, "You may have noticed half of you have one of these"
while raising a cartoon drawing of the penis and "The other half of you have
one of these" as the teacher lifts the vagina image.
Continuing this hypothetical lesson, the teacher would explain that, in time,
the students might discover the desire to have these two physical interfaces
interact. There are myriad reasons for this, the teacher would continue, for
example, love, hormones or peer pressure. Ultimately though, the blushing
teacher would get around to the fact that such interaction - sex, obviously -
can result in unwanted pregnancy or worse, a life threatening disease. The
potential consequences of sex would seem enough to sway everyone to advocate
open talk and government-sanctioned sex education.
But in India, even simple lessons and straight talk on sex are non-existent. On
April 23 ministers of Maharashtra's state government lashed out at the Ministry
of Education and Minister Purke, characterizing his announcement to reinstate
sex ed as rouge and brash.
Shobha Phadanvis, a female member of India's opposition Bharatiya Janata Party,
even absurdly warned that introducing such a curriculum without careful study
could lead to an increase in teachers who sexually abuse students - another
controversial issue in India's schools.
State Assembly speaker Babasaheb Kupekar tabled the sex ed proposal
indefinitely on April 23, citing the need for further consultation from experts
and academics. Meanwhile, another BJP member, Mangalprabhat Lodha, called the
proposal "ignorant" and charged that it did not take into consideration the
cultural, moral and societal factors of the people in the state.
True enough, this controversy has a profound amount of ignorance. The sex
classes are aimed at educating students in the ninth and eleventh years of
education, when they would be typically 14 and 17 years old. Logic suggests
that at that age many would've figured out a few things for themselves.
In the Western country where I was raised sex education was at least a minor
part of the curriculum from the first grade - about seven or eight years old -
and it came up as a topic each year thereafter. It was nothing shocking: those
penis and vagina cartoons were on hand and I learned where babies come from.
But parents in India are woefully conservative in terms of sex. As such,
they're unlikely to have "The Talk" with their children. Sadly, it seems
children will be left on their own to learn about sexuality. It's almost enough
to make you appreciate the global pornography network - aka the Internet -
exists. Hey, at least young people can get information there while their
parents squabble about "controversial" issues. Here's a message for India to
mull over: damning your children to unwanted pregnancy, diseases and overall
negative sexual experiences is not a great way to manage your society.
William Sparrow has been an occasional contributor to Asia Times Online
and now joins Asia Times Online with a weekly column. Sparrow is editor in
chief of Asian Sex
Gazette and has reported on sex in Asia for over five years.
To contact him send question or comments to Letters@atimes.com.
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